Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II – Official weights

By Boxing News - 03/24/2017 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: WBA World lightweight champion Jorge Linares (41-3, 27 KOs) weighed in successfully at 134 ¼ pounds for his weigh-in on Friday for his rematch against former WBA belt holder Anthony Crolla (31-5-3. 13 KOs) his Saturday night at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Crolla weighed in at 134 ½ lbs. here wasn’t much animosity between Crolla and Linares during the stare down. It was more like two friends than two guys about to go into combat.

That’s typical for Linares. He doesn’t tend to get emotionally involved in his face offs with his opponents. He sees boxing as a sport and not some kind of mental game where he tries to intimidate his opponents before he gets into the ring. What’s the point? If you’re truly the better fighter, then you don’t need to try and scare your opponent ahead of time by glaring at them or trash talking.

This fight is the moment of truth for the 30-year-old Crolla. He was already beaten by Linares once in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to him on September 24 last year in Crolla’s hometown of Manchester. Crolla was able to get a rematch. If he loses to Linares on Saturday, I don’t see any point of a third fight. Linares will have shown that he’s the master. You can make a strong case that Crolla doesn’t rate this rematch, because he lost pretty convincingly. Yeah, the judges’ scores for the previous Linares-Crolla fight were awful in my opinion. Here are the scores: 115-114, 115-113 and 117-111. The last score, 117-111, made sense to me, but the other two were from outer space and made zero sense to me.

Crolla is hoping to use the Manchester crowd to his advantage on Saturday night to lead him to victory. It’s unclear whether Crolla hopes that the judges are swayed by the crowd noise or if he’s counting on fighting harder due to the noise. Linares isn’t the type to lose it mentally when he hears cheering for his opponents. So if Crolla is counting on Linares losing his confidence because he hears the boxing fans cheering for Crolla, I think he’s going to be disappointed. Linares fights better when the crowds are cheering, whether the cheering is for him or his opponents. Linares fights better either way. He’s a special kind of fighter that feeds off any kind of crowd noise. That’s bad news for Crolla, because that means he’s going to need to count on the cheering to unconsciously influence the judges.

“I’m going to feed off this energy, feed off the crowd tomorrow night,” Crolla said to Sky Sports News HQ. “If I let it get to me emotions and start playing on that against a sharp counter puncher like Linares, it’s a dangerous thing to do. I’m going to feed off [the crowd] in the right way and use it to spur me on, to get me over the line, to make sure the titles stay here in Manchester,” said Crolla.

See what I mean about Crolla believing that the crowd will help him beat Linares? It’s too bad Crolla can’t just count on his own boxing skills and ability to carry him to victory rather than him yapping about the crowd being a factor. When I see a fighter depending on a crowd to help him win, I see a fighter that lacks the confidence and the talent to win on their own accord. I hope the judges get the scores right because as I pointed out, the scoring for the last Crolla vs. Linares is not the scoring that I had. I also don’t agree with the scoring for Crolla’s first fight against Darley Perez in 2015, a fight which also took place at the Manchester Arena.

I thought Perez was robbed royally in that fight, which is kind of sad. When a fighter comes into another fighter’s home country, they should be able to get out of there without a losing a controversial decision. In the case of Perez, the fight was scored a 12 round draw after the referee took points away from him in rounds 11 and 12 for low blows. In both cases, Crolla was pulling down on the back of Perez’s head when he was throwing the punches that strayed low. Referees are supposed to warn the fighter that is pulling down on his opponent’s head. I didn’t see that. I saw Perez losing 2 points for low blows, and Crolla not losing the fight because of that.

I’m hoping this is the last time Crolla and Linares fight each other. They need to move on already and start fighting other guys like Mikey Garcia or Robert Easter Jr. Linares already beat Crolla, so he should be fighting Mikey Garcia already in my view. Facing Crolla again is kind of redundant. How many times do these guys have to fight each other? If Linares is smart, he’ll go for a knockout on Saturday night so that he can close the book on the Crolla rivalry. If he doesn’t KO him, I get the feeling that Crolla’s promoter Eddie Hearn will look to put the two of them back in together for a third fight. Mikey wants the fight with the winner. That’s the money fight for the winner of the Linares-Crolla rematch.

“I like them but I am going with the hometown fighter. Crolla, you are doing it for all of us and I wish you the best of luck,” said IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua to skysports.com.

It’s nice that Joshua is encouraging Crolla, but it’s not about luck. It’s about talent. Crolla needs to show that he has the talent to beat Linares. Last time, Crolla didn’t have the talent. He was looking at the referee constantly when he was getting hit to the bread basket by Linares, and it appeared to me that he wanted him to step in and take points off from him for the body punches. Linares’ punches weren’t being thrown low. They were above the belt line, which is why I don’t understand why Crolla kept looking at the referee Terry O’Connor when he would get hit to the body. It just made me think that Crolla wanted O’Connor to take points away from Linares the way that the referee Howard John Foster took points away from Darleys Perez for throwing low blows in their first fight in 2015. As I pointed out already, Crolla pulled down on Perez’s head during both low blows.

I cannot see Crolla winning this fight on Saturday. He lacks the overall talent and fire power to handle the incredible boxing skills that Linares possesses.

The World Boxing Council Diamond and Ring Magazine titles will be on the line for the Linares vs. Crolla fight on rematch on Saturday.

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights

Image: Jorge Linares vs. Anthony Crolla II - Official weights